Piatek “Hated Police” Says Ex

Said "something big was going to happen"

The Indiana man accused of plotting to kill a police officer "hated the government" and said "something big was going to happen", according to a former girlfriend.

The woman, who says she was involved in a three-month romantic relationship with Whiting's Thomas Piatek, says she knew he was a member of a Michigan militia group, but had no inkling of his alleged plot against area police.
 
Forty-six year-old Piatek and eight other members of the "Hutaree" militia planned to kill a police officer then attack that officer's funeral with explosives as other police gathered, according to the FBI.
 
"He talked about that he hated the government," says Piatek's girlfriend, who asked not be identified.  "He hated the police.  Two weeks ago he made a trip to Michigan. And he stopped at my house that night.  We went to the show, and that's when he said something big was going to be happening soon."
 
The woman says Piatek did not elaborate on what that "something big" would be.
 
"I just said, you guys are a small group of guys against the government," she said.  "And I said you guys will lose. Something's going to happen to you. And I said, I don't want you to die."
 
Piatek was arrested in suburban Chicago March 28th, after the FBI raided his Whiting, Indiana home.  The woman says she never heard him discuss the alleged plot against police.  But she says she did know about the Hutaree, which she has only now learned was billed as a "Christian militia", which was arming for an apocalyptic battle against the antichrist at the end of the world.  That, she says, came as a surprise.
 
"When I found out it was religious...Tom was not religious!  In so many words, he said he was an atheist!"
 
The woman says Piatek referred to the government as "her government" and that he believed they were responsible for 9/11.  "Knowing how he feels about the government, and he doesn't like the police, he called the guys in Michigan, that was his family."
 
She says she only saw a single example of Piatek's alleged violent tendencies, but the incident was significant enough that she contacted police.  "He always kept a gun behind the driver's seat.  And he pulled it out, and he started putting bullets in it, and he said, you know, if you ever leave me, I will kill you."
 
Even though she says Piatek apologized later that evening, the woman says she was so frightened that she filed a police report the following day.  Highland, Indiana police confirm that report was filed against Piatek, February 26th.
 
Piatek was arrested by the FBI, on charges of seditious conspiracy, almost exactly one month later.
 

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